NEW SCIENCE
FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS
Reviews Of
Recently Published Science Fiction And Fantasy Books
Reviewer:
Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258
Blog Address:
http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com/
July 9, 2016
The Best Alien Contact Story I
Have Ever Read
A Review of
Robert Silverberg’s “The Iron Star” on pp. 173-195 of
The Short
Stories Anthology Humanity 2.0 ed. By
Alex Shvartzman (Arc Manor, 2016)
[Advance
Reading Copy] Scheduled for Publication Oct. 30 271pp
ISBN: 9781612423098
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
Although most of the short stories in this
anthology contain some thought-provoking ideas concerning the possible impact
of space travel upon the human race, Robert Silverberg’s story stands out as
unforgettable and of great importance in showing the potential danger of
meeting extraterrestrial intelligent beings.
In his story one of our spaceships, while investigating the effects of a
supernova comes into contact with a space ship of ETs who had lived on a planet
orbiting this star before it went nova.
When the captain contacts the leader of this ET ship he learns from the
ensuing conversations two important facts about these ETs: that
they are “ethically challenged” (i.e. all they care about is themselves), and that
they are unaware of the existence of black holes. Using these data he devises and then
implements a plan which solves the problem. (See if you can guess what it
is!)
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